Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

Is the so-called 'Spirit of Vatican II' finally waning?

"The Spirit of Vatican II" isn't so much a concept as a slogan. For over 40 years it's been used to justify innovations ranging from Mass in the vernacular (like it or not, an overwhelmingly popular change) to co-consecration by "eucharistic ministers" (a heretical fantasy once widely indulged in "progressive" parishes). Above all, the Spirit of Vatican II – a post-conciliar phenomenon rather than something that emerged during the Council – has branded itself as the empowerment of lay people.

The truth is more complicated. Power has been redistributed to some lay people, but we're not talking about the Legion of Mary. Far be it for me to trade in stereotypes, but if you meet a school head in her 60s with spiky grey hair, Mary Jane shoes and a rotating theological vocabulary of seven words of New Testament Greek, the chances are that she's been empowered. (She may also be very nice, it's only fair to say.)

As for clergy, embracing the Spirit of Vatican II has been a necessary but not sufficient condition for getting on. Most of today's bishops were steeped in "collaborative ministry" long before they received their mitres. Traditionally, a liberal English bishop could hold his own in a room full of Tabletistas, rolling his eyes at the mention of the Vatican to show that he was On Their Side but also moderating their more querulous demands. In the past he may have interfered on their behalf in parishes, too, if he caught a conservative priest trying to Turn Back the Clock.

At meetings of the Bishop's Conference of England and Wales, meanwhile, there has been an unspoken assumption that curial instructions judged to be in the Spirit of Vatican II would be followed more scrupulously than those that failed the test.

And now? I wonder. The bishops did very little to implement Summorum Pontificum, but then (a) it's largely self-implementing and (b) no one in Rome was twisting their arms. Compare this to the new English translation of the Missal, which the Tabletistas would like the bishops to drag their feet over, but which it looks as if they'll introduce fairly meekly. Is this because Rome made sure they signed up to it in advance, or because the increasingly tired and fractious campaign against it represents "the last expiring gasp" of the Spirit of Vatican II? That is William Oddie's suggestion on his Catholic Herald blog. In another post, William notes with surprise that Bishops Kieran Conry and Crispian Hollis, of all people, actually seem to be welcoming the Ordinariate. Again, it makes you wonder what happened to the Spirit of Vatican II, whose elderly lay guardians view with horror the prospect of special arrangements for Anglicans opposed to women priests.

I can think of several explanations, but the one I prefer involves an episcopal change of heart – or at least of mind – brought about by Pope Benedict's visit to Britain. The message of the papal services was that freewheeling liturgical experiments can no longer be justified with reference to the Council. Also, that none of the developments of the 1960s invalidated traditional pious observances such as Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. And the Ordinariate? As they say in the Vatican, Roma locuta est.

It's a pleasing thought, anyway: the essentially bogus, self-congratulatory "Spirit of Vatican II" evaporating as a result of the witness of one of the last people alive who actually attended the Council.